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A short history of ultracalvinism

MENCIUS MOLDBUG · JUNE 12, 2007

Over the last 50 years, Time magazine has become as stupid as its
audience. The unfortunate fact is that anyone in 2007 who reads Time, or
any magazine like it—yes, even The Economist—is simply not right in
the head. (Sometimes I receive random free issues of The Economist or
find a crumpled copy in a cafe, and if I accidentally read a few pages,
or worse one of the leaders, I fly into a shrieking rage and have to
curl up in the closet for a few hours. This rag, which I have loved
since I was big enough to go on the big rollercoaster, is now devoted
utterly and irreversibly to the production and distribution of official
mendacity.)

However, Time was once run by the Luces and the likes of Whittaker
Chambers, and it turned out a word or two in its day. And here’s
something it gave us on March 16, 1942:
American
Malvern.

Unfortunately, any slice I could slice from this confection would be
unconvincing. The whole thing simply must be read in its natural
habitat.

Now isn’t that an interesting article?

Don’t the phrase “Organized U.S. Protestantism’s super-protestant new
program” kind of jump out at you there? Especially being as where it is? In the first sentence? After a grand total of six words? “Organized U.S.
Protestantism’s super-protestant new program?”

It’s almost as if, if you were a reader of Time in 1942, and you read an
article which used the phrase “organized U.S. Protestantism’s
super-protestant new program,” you’d be expected to have some idea what
in the great jumping bejesus it was talking about.

Now if we scan slightly further into the text, we see some names. Who
the hell, for example, is John R. Mott? Who sings of John R. Mott today? I have no idea, but apparently in 1942 he was a “well-known layman.” Only one rings a bell to me: Irving Fisher. Irving Fisher was a
prohibitionist and an inflationist. Pretty much everything that doughboy
done was wrong. So already, I am on my guard.

We also see some denominations, or at least institutional affiliations. And one thing we note is that all of these affiliations are essentially
“low church” in nature. In the British terminology, if they are not
Dissenters they are close. And the British low-church tradition is
basically Calvinist in nature.

So we can sharpen Time’s wording, and describe this incomparable shindig
as not just “protestant” (note the small ‘p,’ there, and the use of the
word as a normal descriptive adjective of public policy, just as one
might say “communist” or “liberal” or “fascist”), but in fact
“calvinist.”

When you change one word it’s usually good to change two. So let’s
define the 2007 descendant of “super-protestant” as
ultracalvinist. (Google gave me only four hits for this
concoction.) Basically meaning the same thing, but not having any weird
connotations of comic-book powers, and allowing for some semantic drift.

I’ll let the content of the Time article speak for itself. Clearly, if
you have trouble identifying the 2007 equivalent of 1942’s
“super-protestant,” you have some kind of historical disorder. Perhaps
you should spend less time watching al-Jazeera. And I also have the sad
honor of informing you that Hugo Chavez is not in fact the second coming
of Thomas Jefferson. If you disagree, especially if you disagree
violently, with these assertions, I will have to suggest that perhaps
there are other blogs you could read.

Now how should we classify ultracalvinism? Well, we can start by taking
it at face value, or at least trying to. We immediately note that,
unlike its equally mysterious ancestor, this “super-protestant” thing,
ultracalvinism does not claim to be Christian at all. It usually claims
to be secular (whatever that means) or even atheistic, although you will
get the occasional Michael Lerner type who defends it as deeply
spiritual.

Here at UR we know that theism and idealism are basically the same
thing, and anything you can do with one you can do with the other. Just
think of them as alternative surface protein variations.

(Any immune response aimed at specific gods (say, Osiris) or
ideals (say, Equality, or the Environment) will be evaded
almost instantly. Any aimed at all theisms, idealisms, or anything in
between, is far too broad and will never work. Any aimed at idealism
alone is a great way to cultivate a flourishing crop of theisms. And
vice versa. This is why we are not so into the
Dawkins-Hitchens-Harris-etc.-etc.-etc. treatment here at UR.)

Ultracalvinism appears to be pretty much the same thing as
“Unitarianism”—that is, in the 2007 sense of that word. This is also
interesting, because Unitarians of one form or another have been running
the US since the day it was born. The doctrines have changed wildly, of
course, but this name has not, although now it is not so often used. But—for example—if you can detect any distinction between Unitarian
Universalism and “political correctness,” for example a proposition on
which the two conflict, your eyes are sharper than mine.

Often ultracalvinism even has the sheer, unmitigated gall to present
itself as the opposite of Christianity. More broadly, it’s a
superior revelation of which Christianity, along with all other
religions, is a mere anticipation, a kind of lame-ass John-the-Baptist
point-the-way figure. Backward people who refuse to accept this
inevitable transition are called “fundamentalists.” If they do accept
it, they are “moderates” or some other term of approbation.

This applies to all religions, of course, not just Christianity. For
example, a “fundamentalist Muslim” is a Muslim (if a sort of Ossianistic
reconstituted pseudo-Muslim). But a “moderate Muslim” is an
ultracalvinist.

It is also interesting to track the relationship between ultracalvinism
and Marxism. Is Marxism a branch of ultracalvinism? Or vice versa? Or
are they siblings in some sense? Perhaps this is a fun “exercise for the
reader.”

And there’s also the post-history of super-protestantism. A few weeks
ago I mentioned a book that I claimed had the best blurb in the history
of the solar system. I am now prepared to reveal the identity of this
remarkable masterpiece of 20th-century verbiage.

The book was published in 1964, although my edition is from ’66, a
really beautiful and timeless slipcased edition from Alfred A. Knopf. The slipcase has an elegant modernist three-color design, sea-blue and
black and red, with the author’s name and the name of the book, and the
translators: Leif Sjoberg and W.H. Auden. The dustcover is white linen
with no design, and its front shows just the author’s name and the
title, in large sea-blue italics, and then under this, in large but not
tastelessly large serif roman, the quote:

“The noblest self-disclosure
of spiritual struggle and triumph,
perhaps the greatest testament
of personal devotion,
published in this century…”

This is signed, tastefully and simply, in very small italics,

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

The book is
Markings
by Dag
Hammarskjöld, and it very much rewards the reader. If not precisely as
author, or reviewer (or translator, for God’s sakes, what was he
thinking? Gee, I can’t even begin to guess) intended.